One of the hazards of intellectual Christian discourse is to anoint ourselves as the amateur evaluators of “the Christian viewpoint” on everything—science, economics, geopolitics, how governments ought to be run, aesthetics, agriculture and whatever other fields of human discourse arise.

This might start innocently enough with the desire to form a biblical worldview, applying broad biblical concepts to every part of life and every human discipline. Does God care about what we think about art or history or economics? If he cares about what we eat or drink (1 Cor. 10:31), it seems that he would. And so we embark on learning to think Christianly—learning and reflecting in ways informed by a Christian framework.

But like any concept or category, “Christian worldview” has morphed, been co-opted, distorted and abused. And among those abuses is the presumption that we can identify a single Christian viewpoint on complex topics. What is the Christian view on inflation? On World War 1? On the current political situation in Argentina? Can we distill a single biblical worldview position on every issue that every Christian ought to agree with? Consider a number of thoughts:

God Defines the One Truth

A hopeful starting point is that there is one truth, not many. Contemporary, popular postmodernism allows us to each have our own truth or settle for something that is “true for me.” It’s an epistemological shrug. “There is no repository for the absolute truth,” postmodernism avers, “only perspectives.”

This is not a Christian way of thinking. God is the final authority on truth, He knows everything, and He has spoken. The very existence of Scripture is a radical assertion that absolute truth can be stated in propositional form using words written in a book, available to anyone willing to take up and read.

It only follows from this foundation that the standard of right thinking is to conform our thoughts to God’s. And so perhaps this answers our opening question. The Christian worldview on any topic is the one that agrees with God’s!

There’s just one problem. None of us are Him.

Our Thoughts are Always Provisional

Theology and philosophy can be heady stuff. Talk long enough about God, man, and the universe and you’re tempted to feel as though you’re shining a flashlight on the underpinnings of reality itself.

But remember how little we actually know about the world, to say nothing of God Himself! A better metaphor: we are like goldfish in an aquarium. Looking out of our glass box at the world outside, we make some very real observations… and a lot of bad assumptions. Whatever our conclusions, you can be sure that they aren’t robust enough to get to the metaphysical core of anything.

As such, are our provisional thoughts untrue? Hopefully not. But neither are they the final word on the matter. In fact, you’ve experienced this. Think of beliefs you held in the past that weren’t exactly wrong but weren’t exactly sufficient either. Our lives and growth in wisdom are construed so that we pass through shallow to deeper layers of truth, holding first to ideas that are true enough but vapid, only thinking at the surface and never grasping the fullness.

So goes all of human wisdom. At our very best, most profound and sublime thoughts are always and only provisional—elementary scratching in the dust; sophomoric ramblings which our future glorified selves can only find cute, amusing, or simply embarrassing.

And yet in the meantime, we have no choice but to go on.

Sorting Unclear from More Clear

My first idea gave the hope of certainty; my second nearly eroded it entirely. Perhaps we can carve out a middle way. Supporting certainty, there are some Christian worldview questions on which we ought to be quite assertive. The one thing that can bridge God’s perfect knowledge and our provisional attempts is revelation—God has spoken! And so strong things ought to be said about the Christian view of abortion, sexual ethics, euthanasia and so on. These are not topics on which thinking Christianly leads us to consider a range of views or toy with other perspectives.

It’s when we move further out that the questions become less obvious. How should Christians think about OPEC? Was the Artemis II mission a good use of funds? Should Australia invest more in submarines? Good Christians may have lots of different views on such questions… or possibly no view at all. And the questions themselves are far too complex to have solved or to expect that everyone must agree.

This parallels how we more generally draw theological conclusions and make practical applications. The deity of Christ and Trinity are not up for discussion; certain details in eschatology should be. What’s the difference? We can only be as assertive as we have data to back it. Ask yourself how well you can support your conclusion with actual biblical information. An abundance of evidence leads to strong conclusions; weaker or conflicting evidence encourages us to wait and see.

So also complex worldview conclusions.

Why not Be Assertive?

When we speak more confidently than we ought, when we act as though there is a monolithic Christian worldview on complex topics, the damages accrue in three domains—the truth, ourselves, and other people.

First, we do damage to the truth by confusing the Christian viewpoint with our own. Inevitably, many extraneous factors prejudice our thinking—everything from our cultural biases to our personal interests to wanting to be right about that internet argument we had 4 years ago. But as soon as we baptize that cauldron of skewed incentives as the Christian view, we’ve cheapened the truth. The third commandment—”do not take God’s name in vain”—leads us to pause and think twice before attaching Christian and biblical authority to our own frameworks and conclusions. The Christian “brand” is not up for sale, and those who capriciously claim God’s authority to back their preferred conclusions on complex topics are answerable to the only One worthy of the name (Jer 23:16-19).

Second, we damage ourselves by overvaluing our ideas. Being right, or at least thinking that we are, is like a drug—a temporary jolt, never fully satisfying and only increasing our craving for more. There’s a biblical word for this—the pride of life. And it’s not only a vice, but also an intellectual parasite. The sophomoric person (“wise-fool”) might know a lot but he is also quite impressed with himself. And so he makes himself vulnerable to brittle ideas because he has lost the tensions that invariably arise in complex discourse. Wise people have learned a lot, but most importantly they have learned to replace pride with love for others. The best kind of wisdom is capable of saying without any hint of shame that “I simply don’t know.” Embrace your limits and your inability to establish the canonical Christian worldview on complex topics. You’ll make important steps towards humility and intelligence, but also towards a more faithful Christian worldview.

Finally, confidence on complex topics destroys Christian charity in our relationships. God’s church is made up of people from every tribe and tongue and culture. Consider how our cherished hot-takes might sound in conversation with godly believers from across planet earth. They are as much a part of God’s church as any other believer. Before we expect universal Christian assent to our conclusions, could we at least acknowledge the counterarguments? What if this range of views between faithful Christians is not a problem to be solved but a healthy recognition that none of us possess all of the facts and that we would benefit from having our views challenged? Announce the single Christian view on complex worldview questions and you lose all of that.

Conclusion

Christian worldview is still a project worth pursuing, or at the least, it is a project we can’t avoid. All of us find ourselves thinking about something, hence it is part of our biblical mandate to try to think Christianly about every topic we face. Some topics have something approaching a more straightforward answer; every topic has at least some straightforward principles and Christian foundations. But thinking Christianly starts with a demeanour of humility before immensity and the mouth that declares “I have spoken things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3). And such a stance is no mere afterthought or a late course correction; it is the very starting point of Christian worldview and the Christian faith.

“Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.” (Eccl. 5:2)